GOSHA, adj. Used in some parts, as an Anglo-Indian technicality, to indicate that a woman was secluded, and cannot appear in public. It is short for P. gosha-nishīn, 'sitting in a corner'; and is much the same as parda-nishīn (see [PURDAH]).
GOUNG, s. Burm. gaung; a village head man. ["Under the Thoogyee were Rwa-goung, or heads of villages, who aided in the collection of the revenue and were to some extent police officials." (Gazetteer of Burma, i. 480.)]
a. GOUR, s. H. gāur, gāuri gāē, (but not in the dictionaries), [Platts gives gaur, Skt. gaura, 'white, yellowish, reddish, pale red']. The great wild ox, Gavaeus Gaurus, Jerd.; [Bos gaurus, Blanford (Mammalia), 484 seq.], the same as the [Bison] (q.v.). [The classical account of the animal will be found in Forsyth, Highlands of Central India, ed. 1889, pp. 109 seqq.]
1806.—"They erect strong fences, but the buffaloes generally break them down.... They are far larger than common buffaloes. There is an account of a similar kind called the Gore; one distinction between it and the buffalo is the length of the hoof."—Elphinstone, in Life, i. 156.
b. GOUR, s. Properly Can. gauḍ, gauṛ, gauḍa. The head man of a village in the Canarese-speaking country; either as corresponding to [patel], or to the [Zemindar] of Bengal. [See F. Buchanan, Mysore, i. 268; Rice, Mysore, i. 579.]
c. 1800.—"Every Tehsildary is farmed out in villages to the Gours or head-men."—In Munro's Life, iii. 92.
c. GOUR, n.p. Gauṛ, the name of a medieval capital of Bengal, which lay immediately south of the modern civil station of Malda, and the traces of which, with occasional Mahommedan buildings, extend over an immense area, chiefly covered with jungle. The name is a form of the ancient Gauḍa, meaning, it is believed, 'the country of sugar,' a name applied to a large part of Bengal, and specifically to the portion where those remains lie. It was the residence of a Hindu dynasty, the Senas, at the time of the early Mahommedan invasions, and was popularly known as Lakhnāotī; but the reigning king had transferred his seat to Nadiya (70 m. above Calcutta) before the actual conquest of Bengal in the last years of the 12th century. Gaur was afterwards the residence of several Mussulman dynasties. [See Ravenshaw, Gaur, its Ruins and Inscriptions, 1878.]
1536.—"But Xercansor [Shīr Khān Sūr, afterwards King of Hindustan as Shīr Shāh] after his success advanced along the river till he came before the city of Gouro to besiege it, and ordered a lodgment to be made in front of certain verandahs of the King's Palace which looked upon the river; and as he was making his trenches certain Rumis who were resident in the city, desiring that the King should prize them highly (d'elles fizesse cabedal) as he did the Portuguese, offered their service to the King to go and prevent the enemy's lodgment, saying that he should also send the Portuguese with them."—Correa, iii. 720.
[1552.—"Caor." See under [BURRAMPOOTER].]
1553.—"The chief city of the Kingdom (of Bengala) is called Gouro. It is situated on the banks of the Ganges, and is said to be 3 of our leagues in length, and to contain 200,000 inhabitants. On the one side it has the river for its defence, and on the landward faces a wall of great height ... the streets are so thronged with the concourse and traffic of people ... that they cannot force their way past ... a great part of the houses of this city are stately and well-wrought buildings."—Barros, IV. ix. cap. 1.